Shin Bet: Lawyers delivered messages for Hamas prisoners

An Israeli Arab human rights lawyer and three Palestinian colleagues were arrested in February for disseminating Hamas messages within Israeli prisons and between Hamas leaders in the West Bank, Gaza and abroad, the Shin Bet security service announced Monday.

This was the second case this month in which lawyers have allegedly taken advantage of lawyer-client confidentiality in order to pass messages to and from prisoners.

The Shin Bet said there was evidence that the suspects had received written directives from Hamas prisoners in Israel and passed them along, both to other Hamas prisoners and “to and from Hamas elements in the West Bank and Gaza.” By their own admission, the Shin Bet said in a statement, the foursome’s activity was handsomely rewarded by Hamas leadership in Gaza.

“The cynical usage that terror organizations make of a policy that honors the legal rights of prisoners is especially troubling in light of the rise of terror in the West Bank and, particularly, the quantitative increase in plans to carry out a kidnapping attack aimed at freeing prisoners,” the Shin Bet said.

The four arrested lawyers are Fares Abu Hassan, the head of the Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights in Nablus; Muhammad Abed, an Israeli lawyer from the Galilee village of Ba’aneh, who works with Abu Hassan and is in charge of the organization’s work within Israeli jails; Ahmad Bitawi, an SFHR lawyer from Nablus in charge of the organization’s ties with the Gaza Strip; and Osama Makbul, also of Nablus, who works for SFHR representing Palestinian clients in the Israeli military courts.

The Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights’ offices in Nablus could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.

After their February 24 arrests, Israeli security forces allegedly found in the lawyers’ offices dozens of letters containing for certain operational directives, sent from Hamas prisoners to local leaders and from the Hamas leadership abroad to the prisoners in Israel.

The letters were passed to and from the prisoners during legal consultations in Israeli prisons. Abed, the Israeli Arab lawyer with access to the Palestinian prisoners in Israel, was said to have been the point man, taking and receiving messages. Upon arrest, he was found to have a million shekels (about $287,000) in his possession.

Hamas leaders released in the October 2011 Gilad Shalit deal, the Shin Bet said, were among those sending messages from abroad to the prisoners in Israel.

It isn’t the first time such actions are exposed. According to the Shin Bet, attacks that led to the abduction of Israeli soldiers and civilians and that ultimately secured the release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a single Israeli soldier, have been executed “on more than one occasion, with the direct involvement of the prisoners, who push the different organizations, to which they belong, to take action to secure their freedom.”